As an archaeological culture, the Mapuche people of southern Chile and Argentina have a long history which dates back to 600–500 BC. The Mapuche society underwent great transformations after Spanish contact in the mid–16th century. These changes included the adoption of Old World crops and animals and the onset of a rich Spanish–Mapuche trade in La Frontera and Valdivia. Despite these contacts Mapuche were never completely subjugated by the Spanish Empire. Between the 18th and 19th century Mapuche culture and people spread eastwards into the Pampas and the Patagonian plains. This vast new territory allowed Mapuche groups to control a substantial part of the salt and cattle trade in the Southern Cone.
Between 1861 and 1883 the Republic of Chile conducted a series of campaigns that ended Mapuche independence causing the death of thousands of Mapuche through combat, pillaging, starvation and smallpox epidemics. Argentina conducted similar campaigns on the eastern side of the Andes in the 1870s. In large parts of the Mapuche lands the traditional economy collapsed forcing thousands to seek themselves to the large cities and live in impoverished conditions as housemaids, hawkers or labourers.
From the late 20th century onwards Mapuche people have been increasingly active in conflicts over land rights and indigenous rights.
Pre-Columbian period
Origins
Archaeological finds have shown the existence of a Mapuche culture in Chile as early as 600 to 500 BC.Bengoa 2000, pp. 16–19. Genetically Mapuches differ from the adjacent indigenous peoples of Patagonia. This is interpreted as suggesting either a "different origin or long lasting separation of Mapuche and Patagonian populations". A 1996 study comparing genetics of indigenous groups in Argentina found no significant link between Mapuches and other groups. A 2019 study on the human leukocyte antigen genetics of Mapuche from Cañete found affinities with a variety of North and South American indigenous groups. Notably the study found affinities also with Aleuts, Eskimos, Pacific Islanders, Ainu from Japan, Negidals from Eastern Siberia and Rapa Nui from Easter Island.
There is no consensus on the linguistic affiliation of the Mapuche language, . In the early 1970s, significant linguistic affinities between Mapuche and Mayan languages were suggested. Linguist Mary Ritchie Key claimed in 1978 that Araucanian languages, including Mapuche, were genetically linked to the Pano-Tacanan languages, to the Chonan languages and the Kawéskar languages. Croese (1989, 1991) has advanced the hypothesis that Mapudungun is related to the Arawakan languages.
In 1954 Grete Mostny postulated the idea of a link between Mapuches and the archaeological culture of El Molle in the Transverse Valleys of Norte Chico. This idea was followed up by Patricio Bustamante in 2007. Mapuche communities in the southern Diaguita lands –that is Petorca, La Ligua, Combarbalá and Choapa – may be rooted in Pre-Hispanic times at least several centuries before the Spanish arrival.Téllez 2008, p. 43. Mapuche toponymy is also found throughout the area. While there was an immigration of Mapuches to the southern Diaguita lands in colonial times Mapuche culture there is judged to be older than this.
Based on mDNA analysis of various indigenous groups of South America it is thought that Mapuche are at least in part descendant of peoples from the Amazon Basin that migrated to Chile through two routes; one through the Central Andean highlands and another through the eastern Bolivian lowlands and the Argentine Northwest.
A hypothesis put forward by Ricardo E. Latcham, and later expanded by Francisco Antonio Encina, theorizes that the Mapuche migrated to present-day Chile from the Pampas east of the Andes. The hypothesis further claims that previous to the Mapuche, there was a "Chincha-Diaguita" culture, which was geographically cut in half by the Mapuche penetrating from mountain passes around the head of the Cautín River. Albeit the Latcham hypothesis is consistent with linguistic features it is rejected by modern scholars due to the lack of conclusive evidence, and the possibility of alternative hypotheses.
Tomás Guevara has postulated another unproven hypothesis claiming that early Mapuches dwelled at the coast due to abundant marine resources and only later moved inland following large rivers.Bengoa 2003, pp. 33–34. Guevara adds that Mapuches would be descendants of northern Changos, a poorly known coastal people, who moved southwards.Bengoa 2003, p. 52. This hypothesis is supported by tenuous linguistic evidence linking a language of 19th century Changos (called Chilueno or Arauco) with Mapudungun.
According to a theory of historian Roberto E. Porcel the Mapuche were descendants of a group of Aymaras that migrated south as consequence of a conflict between Antisuyu and Contisuyu.Porcel, R.E. (2007). La Araucanización de Nuestra Pampa. Los Tehuelches y Pehuenches. Los Mapuches Invasores. Porcel, R.E., Buenos Aires.
Tiwanaku and Puquina influence It has been conjectured that the collapse of the Tiwanaku empire about 1000 CE caused a southward migratory wave leading to a series of changes in Mapuche society in Chile. This explains how the Mapuche language obtained many loanwords from Puquina language including (sun), (warlock), (moon), (salt) and (mother). Tom Dillehay and co-workers suggest that the decline of Tiwanaku would have led to the spread of agricultural techniques into Mapuche lands in south-central Chile. These techniques include the raised fields of Budi Lake and the canalized fields found in Lumaco Valley.
A cultural linkage of this sort may help explain parallels in mythological cosmologies among Mapuches and peoples of the Central Andes.
Possible Polynesian contact
In 2007, evidence appeared to have been found that suggested pre-Columbian contact between Polynesians from the western Pacific and the Mapuche people. Chicken bones found at the El Arenal site in the Arauco Peninsula, an area inhabited by Mapuche, support a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken to South America. The bones found in Chile were carbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, before the arrival of the Spanish. Chicken DNA sequences taken were matched to those of chickens in present-day American Samoa and Tonga; they did not match the DNA of European chickens. However, a later report in the same journal, assessing the same mtDNA, concluded that the Chilean chicken specimen matches with the European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences. Thus, it may not support a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America.
In December 2007, several human skulls with Polynesian features, such as rocker jaws and pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, were found lying on a shelf in a museum in Concepción. These skulls turned out to have come from people of Mocha Island, an island just off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, today inhabited by Mapuche. Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Otago and José Miguel Ramírez Aliaga of the University of Valparaíso hope to win agreement soon with the locals of Mocha Island to begin an excavation to search for Polynesian remains on the island. Rocker jaws have also been found at an excavation led Ramírez in pre-Hispanic tombs and shell middens () of the coastal locality of Tunquén, Central Chile.
According to Ramírez "more than a dozen Mapuche - Rapa Nui cognates have been described". Among these are the Mapuche words toki (axe), kuri (black) and piti (little).
The Mapuche clava hand club have striking similarities with the Maori wahaika.
Mapuche expansion into Chiloé Archipelago
A theory postulated by chronicler José Pérez García holds the Cunco settled in Chiloé Island in Pre-Hispanic times as consequence of a push from more northern Huilliche who in turn were being displaced by Mapuche.Alcamán 1997, p. 32.Alcamán 1997, p. 33.
Evidence for a Chono past of the southernmost Mapuche lands in Chiloé and the nearby mainland are various placenames with Chono etymologies despite the main indigenous language of the archipelago at the arrival of the Spanish being veliche (Mapuche). This is in line with notions of ethnologist Ricardo E. Latcham who consider the Chono along other sea-faring nomads may be remnants from more widespread indigenous groups that were pushed south by "successive invasions" from more northern tribes.Trivero Rivera 2005, p. 41.
The Payos, an indigenous group in southern Chiloé encountered by the Spanish, may have been Chonos en route to acculturate into the Mapuche.Cárdenas, Renato; Montiel, Dante y Hall, Catherine (1991). Los chono y los veliche de Chiloé. Santiago: Olimpho. 277 p.
Inca expansion and influence
Troops of the Inca Empire are reported to have reached Maule River and had a battle with Mapuches from Maule River and Itata River there.Bengoa 2003, pp. 37–38. The southern border of the Inca Empire is believed by most modern scholars to be situated between Santiago and the Maipo River or somewhere between Santiago and the Maule River. Spanish chroniclers Miguel de Olavarría and Diego de Rosales claimed the Inca frontier laid much further south at the Bío Bío River. While historian José Bengoa concludes that Inca troops apparently never crossed Bío Bío River,Bengoa 2003, p. 39. chronicler Diego de Rosales gives an account of the Incas crossing the river going south all the way to La Imperial and returning north through Tucapel along the coast.
The main settlements of the Inca Empire in Chile lay along the Aconcagua River, Mapocho River and the Maipo River. Quillota in Aconcagua Valley was likely their foremost settlement. As result of Inca rule there was some Mapudungun–Imperial Quechua bilingualism among Mapuches of Aconcagua Valley. Salas argue Mapuche, Quechua and Spanish coexisted with significant bilingualism in Central Chile (between Mapocho and Bío Bío) rivers during the 17th century.
As it appear to be the case in the other borders of the Inca Empire, the southern border was composed of several zones: first, an inner, fully incorporated zone with mitimaes protected by a line of pukaras (fortresses) and then an outer zone with Inca pukaras scattered among allied tribes. This outer zone would according to historian José Bengoa have been located between Maipo and Maule Rivers.
Incan yanakuna are believed by archaeologists Tom Dillehay and Américo Gordon to have extracted gold south of the Incan frontier in free Mapuche territory. Following this thought the main motif for Incan expansion into Mapuche territory would have been to access gold mines. Same archaeologists do also claim all early Mapuche pottery at Valdivia is of Inca design. Inca influence can also be evidenced far south as Osorno Province (latitude 40–41° S) in the form of Quechua and Quechua–Aymara toponyms. Alternatively these toponyms originated in colonial times from the population of the Valdivian Fort System that served as a penal colony linked to the Peruvian port of El Callao.
Gold and silver bracelets and "sort of crowns" were used by Mapuches in the Concepción area at the time of the Spanish arrival as noted by Jerónimo de Vivar. This is interpreted either as Incan gifts, war spoils from defeated Incas, or adoption of Incan metallurgy.
Through their contact with Incan invaders Mapuches would have for the first time met people with state-level organization. Their contact with the Inca gave them a collective awareness distinguishing between them and the invaders and uniting them into loose geopolitical units despite their lack of state organization.Bengoa 2003, p. 40.
Mapuche society at the arrival of the Spanish
Demography and settlement types